Word of mouth

Word of mouth or viva voce, is the passing of information from person to person using oral communication, which could be as simple as telling someone the time of day.[1] Storytelling is a common form of word-of-mouth communication where one person tells others a story about a real event or something made up. Oral tradition is cultural material and traditions transmitted by word of mouth through successive generations. Storytelling and oral tradition are forms of word of mouth that play important roles in folklore and mythology. Another example of oral communication is oral history—the recording, preservation and interpretation of historical information, based on the personal experiences and opinions of the speaker. Oral history preservation is the field that deals with the care and upkeep of oral history materials collected by word of mouth, whatever format they may be in.

For the marketing term, see Word-of-mouth marketing.
For other uses, see Word of mouth (disambiguation).

Storytelling

Storytelling often involves improvisation or embellishment. Stories or narratives have been shared in every culture as a means of entertainment, education, cultural preservation and in order to instill moral values.

The earliest forms of storytelling were thought to have been primarily oral combined with gesture storytelling for many of the ancient cultures.[2] The Australian Aboriginal people painted symbols from stories on cave walls as a means of helping the storyteller remember the story. The story was then told using a combination of oral narrative, music, rock art, and dance.[3]

Traditionally, oral stories were committed to memory and then passed from generation to generation. However, in literate societies, written and televised media have largely replaced this method of communicating local, family, and cultural histories. Oral storytelling remains the dominant medium of learning in some countries with low literacy rates.

Oral tradition

Oral tradition (sometimes referred to as "oral culture" or "oral lore") is cultural material and traditions transmitted orally from one generation to another.[4][5] The messages or testimony are verbally transmitted in speech or song and may take the form, for example, of folktales, sayings, ballads, songs, or chants. In this way, it is possible for a society to transmit oral history, oral literature, oral law and other knowledges across generations without a writing system.

Sociologists emphasize a requirement that the material is held in common by a group of people, over several generations, and thus distinguish oral tradition from testimony or oral history.[6] In a general sense, "oral tradition" refers to the transmission of cultural material through vocal utterance, and was long held to be a key descriptor of folklore (a criterion no longer rigidly held by all folklorists).[7] As an academic discipline, it refers both to a set of objects of study and a method by which they are studied[8]—the method may be called variously "oral traditional theory", "the theory of Oral-Formulaic Composition" and the "Parry-Lord theory" (after two of its founders). The study of oral tradition is distinct from the academic discipline of oral history,[9] which is the recording of personal memories and histories of those who experienced historical eras or events.[10] It is also distinct from the study of orality, which can be defined as thought and its verbal expression in societies where the technologies of literacy (especially writing and print) are unfamiliar to most of the population.[11]

Oral history

Oral history is the recording of personal memories and histories of those who experienced historical eras or events.[10] Oral history is a method of historical documentation, using interviews with living survivors of the time being investigated. Oral history often touches on topics scarcely touched on by written documents, and by doing so, fills in the gaps of records that make up early historical documents. Oral history preservation is the field that deals with the care and upkeep of oral history materials, whatever format they may be in.[12]

Systems

Long-established systems using word-of-mouth include:

See also

References
  1. "by word of mouth". thefreedictionary.com. Retrieved 4 April 2018.
  2. "Why did Native Americans make rock art?". Rock Art in Arkansas. Retrieved 9 May 2016.
  3. Cajete, Gregory, Donna Eder and Regina Holyan. Life Lessons through Storytelling: Children's Exploration of Ethics. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2010, ISBN 0253222443
  4. Vansina, Jan: "Oral Tradition as History", 1985, James Currey Publishers, ISBN 0-85255-007-3, ISBN 978-0-85255-007-6; at page 27 and 28, where Vansina defines oral tradition as "verbal messages which are reported statements from the past beyond the present generation" which "specifies that the message must be oral statements spoken sung or called out on musical instruments only"; "There must be transmission by word of mouth over at least a generation". He points out that "Our definition is a working definition for the use of historians. Sociologists, linguists or scholars of the verbal arts propose their own, which in, e.g., sociology, stresses common knowledge. In linguistics, features that distinguish the language from common dialogue (linguists), and in the verbal arts features of form and content that define art (folklorists)".
  5. Ki-Zerbo, Joseph: "Methodology and African Prehistory", 1990, UNESCO International Scientific Committee for the Drafting of a General History of Africa; James Currey Publishers, ISBN 0-85255-091-X, 9780852550915; see Ch. 7; "Oral tradition and its methodology" at pages 54-61; at page 54: "Oral tradition may be defined as being a testimony transmitted verbally from one generation to another. Its special characteristics are that it is verbal and the manner in which it is transmitted."
  6. Henige, David. Oral, but Oral What? The Nomenclatures of Orality and Their Implications Oral Tradition, 3/1-2 (1988): 229-38. p 232; Henige cites Jan Vansina (1985). Oral tradition as history. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press
  7. Degh, Linda. American Folklore and the Mass Media. Bloomington:IUP, 1994, p. 31
  8. Dundes, Alan, "Editor’s Introduction" to "The Theory of Oral Composition", John Miles Foley. Bloomington, IUP, 1988, pp. ix-xii
  9. Henige, David. Oral, but Oral What? The Nomenclatures of Orality and Their Implications Oral Tradition, 3/1-2 (1988): 229-38. p 232; Henige cites Jan Vansina (1985). Oral tradition as history. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press
  10. "UNC Writing Center Has Moved". www.unc.edu. Retrieved 4 April 2018.
  11. Ong, Walter, S. J., "Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word". London: Methuen, 1982 p 12
  12. Keakopa, M. (1998). The role of the archivist in the collection and preservation of oral traditions. S.A. Archives Journal, 40,87-93.
  13. Dolgin, Alexander (6 October 2008). The Economics of Symbolic Exchange. Springer Science & Business Media (published 2008). p. 228. ISBN 9783540798828. Retrieved 2014-12-03. Word of mouth can overcome the information cascade devised by marketing specialists. This is important as objective testimony to the power of the bush telegraph.
  14. "Luther asserted, 'It is the manner of the New Testament and of the gospel that it must be preached and performed by word of mouth and a living voice. Christ himself has not written anything, nor has he ordered anything to be written, but rather to be preached by word of mouth.'" Quoted in: Whitford, David M (25 September 2014). "Preaching and Worship". T&T Clark Companion to Reformation Theology. Bloomsbury Companions. Bloomsbury Publishing (published 2014). p. 161. ISBN 9780567445087. Retrieved 2014-12-03.
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